The illegal trade in
elephant ivory is flourishing in Egypt due
to a lack of law enforcement, combined with
the entrance into the market of a major
new consumer—the Chinese buyer, according
to a new TRAFFIC investigation.
The new report, Illegal
ivory sales in Egypt, published in the latest
issue of the TRAFFIC Bulletin states “Egypt
remains one of Africa’s largest markets
for illegal ivory items,” adding “No ivory
items—old or new—can be sold legally in
Egypt without a special permit, and none
has ever been issued.”
According to senior
government officials interviewed by the
report’s authors, Esmond Martin and Lucy
Vigne, since 2009, only two ivory seizures
had taken place in Egypt, both at Cairo
airport, while there had been no confiscations
of ivory items from retail outlets since
2003.
During the latest survey
carried out in March and April 2011, the
authors counted 8343 ivory items openly
for sale in Cairo, a city described as the
“carving centre of the country”.
Despite the recent political unrest almost
all outlets and workshops were open in the
old market—Khan al-Khalili—Cairo’s main
centre for the manufacture and retail sale
of ivory products. A further 918 ivory items
were seen in Luxor.
3000 of the ivory pieces
were estimated to have been produced in
the last five years, the rest mostly carved
in Egypt in the 11000s and early 2000s.
Previous TRAFFIC surveys of Cairo and Luxor,
the two main Egyptian ivory markets, in
1998 and 2005 found an overall 43% reduction
in the combined number of ivory objects
for sale, but this figure had only dropped
by a further 10% in the 2011 survey, mostly
in Luxor.
“The encouraging demise
of Egypt’s illegal ivory markets between
1998 and 2005 has now lost all momentum.
Government regulators have faltered and
Egypt retains its unenviable position as
a leading ivory retailing offender,” said
Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC’s ivory trade expert,
who commissioned the study.
“Tourists buying ivory
are potentiating this illegal trade, making
a mockery of CITES and fuelling the poaching
of Africa’s elephants.”
The report found that
while Spanish, Italians and Americans were
the main buyers in 2005, more Egyptians
and Gulf Arabs were now buying ivory rosaries
and walking sticks, but the Chinese have
become the principal buyers, reportedly
purchasing over half of all worked ivory
sold.
One ivory vendor told
the investigators that Chinese buyers would
sometimes spend USD50,000 on ivory during
one bargaining session.
Others claimed there was no problem in bringing
ivory out of Egypt, with some even offering
to write a receipt indicating that a piece
was an antique or made of camel bone.
The Egyptian Wildlife
Service is mandated to prevent illegal wildlife
products from coming into and out of the
country and from being displayed in shops,
but there have been few ivory seizures since
2005, while inspections of retail outlets
have failed to find ivory.
Meanwhile, ivory continues
to be openly carved and displayed in Cairo’s
markets without any prosecution ensuing.
In May 2010, the Egyptian
Management Authority for CITES (the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species
of Wild Fauna and Flora) held seven training
courses involving wildlife officers, Customs,
police officers and tourist workers, to
identify products from endangered species,
and produced posters to help officials identify
elephant tusks.
“It is time these newly
learned skills were employed to confiscate
raw and worked ivory, in order to bring
this flagrant trade to an end,” said Esmond
Martin, the lead author on the report.
TRAFFIC is a joint programme of WWF and
IUCN.
